Rheumatoid Arthritis: Endless Pain or Dietary Change
One example of the
complexity of inflammatory illness is rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Modern medicine
sees it as a lifelong illness with no resolution. The common medical opinion
is that diet has no relationship to this crippling disease. Back in the 1970's,
this was generally concluded when a lacto-ovo (milk and eggs included) diet had shown no effect.
More recently, however, a Finnish physiology department has been publishing conclusive studies that a raw
vegan diet called Living Foods makes a significant difference in RA symptoms. The catch was, that while all participants improved,
some improved far more than others. The difference, according to long term follow
up, was the bacteria in the guts of the patients. Those with good bacteria improved
the most, while those with a P. mobilis bacteria had the least improvement.
Looking at rheumatic
fever sheds some light on this possible bacteria/inflammation connection. The
fever was associated with a streptococcus bacterial infection. It wasn't a direct
relationship, but a possibility after three to four weeks. The cause was thought
to be an autoimmune cross reaction by the body to both the bacteria and the body's own heart valves.
Interestingly, rheumatoid
arthritis (RA) patients live as long as non-sufferers, with the exception of an increase in heart disease. We know a change in gut bacteria decreases or increases rheumatic symptoms.
And we know a particular gut bacteria is associated with that fluctuation in symptoms.
Could a chronic cross reaction by the body to that bacteria and the heart result in the increased deaths from heart
disease that RA sufferers experience?
We have a clue in
juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, a sudden attack of joint pain, fever, and all the symptoms of an infection. Juvenile RA is classified as an autoimmune disease, but may be associated with a recent infection. Incidence of juvenile RA has been increasing, just as RA incidence has been increasing.
But what has happened
to rheumatic fever? The last outbreak in the U.S. was in 1992, in a west coast
army camp. It was a bad outbreak, with a very high heart involvement. Strangely, only 60% of those affected had ever experienced any sore throat or streptococcal infection.
About the time that
rheumatic fever was dying out, a new disease, called Kawasaki disease, was springing up.
This unknown autoimmune disease attacks children, producing symptoms like an infection and with a very high proportion
of heart involvement. It isn't classified as rheumatic fever because it is much
more severe, and they have been unable to tie Kawasaki disease to a history of sore throats. But
recently, they found that Kawasaki disease is associated with a streptococcus super antigen.
Could Kawasaki Disease
be the result of super bacteria produced by our blatant overuse of antibiotics? And
now, instead of rheumatic fever, we have the much more nasty super response. The
difficulty is that Kawasaki Disease has been found only in children, while rheumatic fever occurred in both adults and children.
Since the symptoms
in children are heart related, it may be that in adults, particularly older adults, something like Kawasaki would not be diagnosed. Adults rarely allow themselves to experience fevers, and if we have joint pain we
take pain killers. In many cases the pain killers also act as fever suppressants. So would an adult with Kawasaki present with anything other than heart damage? It might make someone suspicious if we were very young, but for an older adult with
known arthritis, chances are no one would even look for another cause. A sudden
heart attack with severe inflammation, no further diagnosis necessary.
See original page
for the research backing up everything I just said.
